The Worst Kind of Enemies
by Mummy's little nightmare
Summary: Before Axel found a good friend in Roxas, he had another friend. A friendship that just as strong. Which just made the fallout even more painful.
1. Chapter One

A/N: I think the friendship between Lea/Axel and Isa/Saïx, is one that needs to be explored more. The first few chapters of the story will be more lighthearted before we get into the deep stuff. But I hope you enjoy the ride.

Let me know what you think.

Exclaimer: I own none of the characters or places that are part of this story.

..

No one could have predicted it would have all begun in Radiant Garden.

Not this glorious and happy town, home to so many blissful residents.

Not the incredible town run by the great Ansem the Wise.

Lord Ansem, who was so popular and loved by the townsfolk. The old, the young, those which had been born there and those which had recently moved in. All adored the brilliant man in charge of their town.

With it's peaceful villages, which were spread around nicely giving the town a homey but not compact feel.

The Fountain Court of Radiant Garden was truly a grand sight. Just gazing upon the huge ornament was uplifting and inspired a feeling of peace to those who sought it out.

However nowhere in Radiant Garden was as astonishing as Ansem The Wise's majestic castle.

His home was always open to those in need. Local children were welcome to use the library to aid them with school projects, groups of teenagers could usually be seen in or around the castle. Apparently Lord Ansem was always looking for young apprentices to aid him in scientific discoveries and he was also on the look out for people to hire around the castle for odd jobs. This could be anything from the castle guard to the toilet cleaner.

There was always space for the people of Radiant Garden in Ansem the Wise's castle.

However the townsfolk, so blissfully happy to be a part of this wonderful place could never have predicted that their beautiful town would one day be the cause of the darkness and pain which would spread to other worlds.

Well the town itself would not be the cause of the suffering of the other worlds. A certain group of residents on the other hand...

...

The boy was racing to school the first time he truly noticed the castle. It was strange, he had walked past it almost everyday of his life, but this was the first time it truly warranted his attention.

He couldn't put his finger on why exactly. Maybe it was because this was the first time he had walked by it without his mother escorting him or maybe today his brain just decided it randomly take notice.

His mother often said he had the attention span of a gnat. This usually meant his brain would give various objects and people, a quick glancing consideration before it chose something else to focus on.

She had told him this on several occasions. He didn't really give her thoughts much notice. Mostly due to his overactive brain flitting around for something more interesting to concentrate on.

That however, was the old Lea. He was now five years old. Practically a grown up as far as he was concerned. Well he was starting his first day at school this morning. What clearer sign for a grown up could there be?

He suddenly halted in his race to glance at the castle. Whenever he had pranced by before his mother was usually in a hurry to get somewhere so he never got a good look.

He looked now however. His clear green eyes soaking up the sight for the first time properly in his entire life. He had to crane his neck to look all the way to the top. His messy red hair swaying back in the process.

The place was massive. He couldn't think of any other way to put it. Massive and busy. This was a strange occurance in his opinion. But that was only because he thought the idea of anyone up and moving around before 8.00am was clearly crazy.

"Watch it brat!" He heard a grizzled sounding voice snap from behind. "Move your feet before I make them move." The older man ordered. The growling demand belong to Cid. Radiant Garden's resident mechanic and handy man. If anyone had any issues with anything techinical or just needed something fixed, he was generally the one they went to.

At this particular moment he was hefting a large sheet of glass, wrapped in protective plastic. Obviously a window somewhere needed repairing.

"Hey, no need to get nasty!" Was Lea's truly wise retort. "I was only lookin'. No crime in that is there?" He tried to sound as confident and defiant as he could. It was probably no use though, Cid was probably the scariest person in Radiant Garden, as far as Lea was concerned.

"Just move it will ya'? You're blocking the doorway and some of us don't have time to stand 'round." This was a reletivley tame resonse for Cid. One of the things that made the greying blonde so scary was, he seemed to have no problem shouting and swearing at kid's if they were in his way.

Today being Lea's first day of school had made him a little braver around the grumpy mechanic than usual.

"Maybe if you tried saying please, I might move." That's right, the old Lea would never have spoken back against Cid. Thus proving he was truly a grown up now.

In hindsight speaking back probably wasn't a good idea, but watching as Cid's face reddened with anger at being spoken to in such a way, was more than Lea could have asked for.

He would have considered this a victory if Cid hadn't then gently leant the wrapped up glass sheet against the castle's sharp stone walls, looked him in the eye with a glare that would make a tiger shudder in fear and chased Lea away shaking his fist and yelling after him.

"You'd better watch your step from now on you little runt! Next time I tell you to move you'd better damn well do it unless you want my foot up your ass!"

Ah yes that was this Cid Highwind he was familiar with.

Lea was now left with no other choice but to run away as fast as his little legs would take him. Laughing to himself the entire time. Trying to dodge other groups of people he approached. Some were groups of kids that went to his school. Also unaware that he caught the attention of two seven year old boys, who he almost ran right into.

Maybe he should do this kind of thing more often. The reaction was just priceless. He doubted however that once his mother heard about him defying the old coot, she probably wouldn't let him out the house until he was at least twenty years old.

...

After the morning excitement at the castle, Lea found school to be a crushing bore. The way his mother had hyped it up the last few months he thought he was in for a much more exciting experience.

He pretty much just spent the day sitting at a desk listening to the teacher drone on about, something or other. Probably something to do with the school rules or whatever.

He wasn't exactly listening. Apparently he hadn't grown out of his short attention span as he'd first thought.

He supposed the other kids in his class were alright. Not to energetic and they all seemed to listen attentivley to the teacher. At the end of the day he wondered if he was the only one who had no idea what the hell the teacher was talking about.

The teacher had sat him at the front of the class, in order to keep a close eye on him. She had picked up of his wavering attention within a couple of hours of class starting. She had sat him by a small boy named Hope Esthiem.

Hope was a very small boy, probably the smallest in the class. This probably meant he was the youngest in the class to. His skin was pale and his hair was rather poofy. After Lea had been sat next to him, Hope sent the rest of the day looking down at the desk trying not to get Lea's attention.

The two had met many times before. They had lived next door to each other pretty much their entire lives. Hope having first hand experience of Lea's larger than life personality.

Lea noticed the smaller boy's discomfort. Decided to have some fun. He couldn't see any other way he was gonna have fun today.

"Hiya, Hope." Lea said queitly, trying not the gain the teacher's attention. She had her back turned to them to write on the board at the front of the room. "Arn't you gonna say hello back?" He asked after a few moments of silence between the two.

To anyone who didn't know Lea, you would think the other boy was being rude in ignoring an innocent request for a 'hello'. However Hope was well aware that Lea was just baiting him, looking for a way to entertain himself. Sometimes that meant he was a little mean to other people.

"Hello Lea." Was Hope's shy response.

"See I knew you could talk." Lea smirked as he spoke formulating an idea in his head about what to do next. "How about you and I have a little fun?"

Uh- oh. Hope was well aware now that if Lea wanted to ,'have a little fun' that usually wasn't a good thing.

"What did you have in mind?" When it came to moments like this, Hope usually just went along with it. Mostly to try and keep his interactions with him as mercifully brief as possible.

Lea thought for a moment. All the times he could think back to his encouters with Hope, it usually ended with Hope ignoring him or telling on him to his mom. He supposed now the other boy didn't have much chance of getting out of this. He knew he wouldn't tell the teacher because Hope didn't like to make scenes.

He looked around the classroom for a while longer pondering his next step.

His eyes falling on a boy at sat on the row behin him.

The boy was paying close attention to whatever it was the teacher was droning on about. This boy was probably about the same height as Lea, though he couldn't really tell because they were both sat down. His eyes were green like Lea's as well, though the shade wasn't as vibrant. His hair was a light blue shade, quite a strange hair colour.

The way he seemed so focused and the way he sat up straight told Lea everything he needed to know about the kid. He was probably a tattle tale.

Maybe he would keep the blue haired boy out of this prank.

It seemed though, that the other boy was well aware of the red head sizing him up.

"Quite staring." He hissed "I'm tryin' to listen and you're making me feel uncomfortable." The hiss was whispered so as not to alert the teacher.

"What makes you think I was starin'?" Lea retorted.

"...Um I have eyes!"

"Pfft...I wasn't lookin' at you" He turned back to face the front of the room, though leaned back in his chair so the other boy could hear what he had to say. "You're nothing worth lookin' at anyway." He said this purley to get a reaction from him.

Unfortuantly for Lea however, he didn't take the bait.

"Well then you have no reason to keep looking back do ya'?"

His comeback was so unexpected, Lea snorted a small far today the boy kept to himself. He hadn't seemed capable of any kind of smart retort.

"...Eh you're not worth it." Lea decided to leave it in the end. He had seen the teacher glance over when we laughed. A couple of other kids, sat close to them heard it as well. The two were gradually gaining more attention.

"Excuse me boys." Miss Trepe stepped away from thr board and closer to the table, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "I'm not interupting your conversation now am I?" She directed this more at Lea.

"Nah...Don't worry about it Miss!" Well if Lea couldn't get a rise out of this other kid, he may as well try with the teacher. This could be fun.

"If you continue to carry on disturbing the lesson and the others, Then I'll have no choice but to keep you in over lunch break." She kept her voice level but firm. Clearly she'd had worse students in the past "Understand?"

"Yes Miss." This was mumbled back. Miss Trepe looked triumphant and went back to the lesson.

In the future this threat would mean nothing to Lea. He'd probably be the one in class to get most detentions. But Lea didn't really want to miss out on lunch today, so he went with the wise choice and kept quiet.

He did, however turn to give the other boy one last glare. Sadly for Lea though the boy was now staring over his head at the board. This made Lea shrink back into his chair and grumble to himself.

Hope silently let out a sign of relief. Truly glad that someone had taken Lea's attention from him.

...

It was a huge relief when the techer dismissed them at the end of the day. If today was anything to go by, then the next few years of school were going to be a drag. He suposed he would just have to find some way to entertain himself.

"Hey, you!" A red headed boy a little older than him approached him as he tried to spring for the school gates. He was being trailed by another boy with a shaved head who didn't look to pleased to be approaching a kid younger than him.

Lea straightened up. Curious about what they wanted.

"We saw you givin' a mouthful to ol' Highwind this morning." The older redhead chuckled at the memory. "You got a lot of guts to talk back to that old dinosaur." He looked at Lea with a touch of admiration in his eyes.

"Heh that old geezer don't scare me!" Lea was of course lying through his teeth, but the cool older kids didn't need to know during his whole encounter with Cid that his knees were shaking.

The bald boy behind the red head rolled his eyes slightly. He was quite tall for his age, making Lea try to stand up to his full height.

"Reno." The bald kid groaned. "Can we not do this now? You know I gotta get home."

"Rude, please I'm talking to..." The boy, Reno inclined his head forward indicating he wanted Lea to answer.

"Lea."

"I'm talking to Lea. We can go in a moment just hold your horses will ya." This response made Rude's shoulder's slump forward.

"Come on!" Was Rude's protest "He's done what we've both done like a thousand times. What makes him so special?"

"Exactly. How many other people are brave enough to talk back to that ol' coot?" Reno looked back at Lea and smiled. "Hey if you ever wanna hang out just give us a shout. Got it?" This made Lea light up.

"Sure!" He said trying not to sound to eager. How often would two older kids extend an invitation like this? He couldn't ruin it now.

"See ya around then squirt." Reno gave a sloppy mock salute as he and Rude walked off.

Maybe his first day at school had been alright after all.

...

At school the next day Lea found Reno and Rude at lunch break, taking Reno up on the offer to hang out

They got to know each other pretty well. Lea discovering that the boys were both seven years old and in the same class as each other. He could hardly believe that he's made friends wih some kinds two whole years older than him. This may not seem like a big deal to many people, but to a five year old being asked to hang out with two older kids on his first day of school, it was truly an amazing feat.

It also turns out that Reno and Rude had quite the reputation around the school. Seems that they enjoyed causing trouble as much as he did. They were known to pull pranks on teachers, oder kids, younger kids and kids in the same class as them. No one was safe from the two constant need to cause chaos.

It quickly spread around school that the two older boys had chosen Lea as a new companion. The teachers all knew what Reno and Rude were capable of. Now they had Lea along for the ride as well, the teachers knew nothing good could come of it.

His mother wasn't to thrilled however. She was hoping that starting school would calm her son down, but no such luck. She wasn't particualry impressed to hear about these two boys her son had taken to hanging out with either. Of course she wanted him to have friends, but she was hoping he would pick a friend who didn't encourage his hectic behaviour.

She decided to put a stop to Lea walking to and from school by himself as well. It hadn't taken long for her to hear about Lea's encounter with Cid.

Needless to say Lea found it embarrassing to have his Mommy walking him to and from school each day. Not that he was the only one of course, but he now had a reputation to keep up with.

This didn't deter his growing friendship with the older boys however. Apparently they had similar experiences. Reno even confessing that this was the first year since he started school, that he didn't have to be escorted by his older sister.

Lea's friendship with the two seven year olds had also made other kids in his class kind of afraid of him. He didn't make a friend in his class, but had so far been the only one his age to make friends with a coiple of older kids.

Lea revelled in this however. By the end of his first month at school he was pretty much in charge of everyone his age. This was because the other kids were too afraid to cross him, in fear that his older friends would gang up on them.

Well everyone other than the kid with blue hair, who he'd clashed with on his first day.

Since the original confrontation, there had been several others. Most happened during class, and almost all of them invloved Lea getting punished for it. Not the other kid.

That's probably what annoyed Lea the most. Lea would always initiated it and the other kid was always retaliate in his usual aloof way. Which drove Lea crazy.

He couldn't understand how someone could just brush it all off and not let it affect him.

Since the first meeting between the two Lea had been help back for several lunch breaks, been kept after school for ten minuets twice and had his seat moved away from both Hope and the annoying kid with blue hair.

He'd actually looked really smug about it when Lea thought back. This just annoyed him more.

Lea didn't let this deter him from though. Even though Lea had been moved to another table during class, the odds were that the two boys would usually run into each other at least once during school time. The perfect chance, in Lea's opinion, to try and get a rise from the other kid.

One day after being kept after class for ten minuets, his mother questioned his motives when she came to pick him up.

"Couldn't you just leave this boy alone? I mean what reason do you have to pick on him?" There was an exasperated edge to her voice.

"It's just not fair that he never gets in trouble." Lea pouted.

"Well why would he? You're always the one to start the trouble." His mother was trying to be understanding, but Lea was making it difficult to sypmathise with him.

"He always acts like such a smartass." Lea mumbled, as if this was a good enough excuse.

"Lea! Where did you hear that word?" His mother snapped, now entirely focused on his use of bad language.

"Mr. Highwind." His response caused his mother to curse under her breath. She made a mental note to have a word with Cid about the way he spoke in front of children.

She's dropped the subject after that. Lea was glad of it. He was tired of everyone going on about it, as if he'd commited some terrible crime.

Both Reno and Rude had been informed of the various encounters involving the blue haired kid. It seems that his refusal to let Lea annoy him, annoyed Lea in return.

"You can't let him treat ya' like that." Reno had told him after Lea had, had another brush with the young boy.

"That's right! Next time he gives you trouble just let him know whose boss!" Rude persuaded.

At first Rude wasn't sure how he felt about having Lea hang around them. He had quickly warmed to him however after hearing all about Lea's shenanigans in his class and on the playground. Needless to say Rude was impressed with Lea's tenacity.

At least they understood where Lea was coming from. He was glad at least someone did.

With the support of his friends/body guards Lea vowed that one way or another, he was going to get the stupid blue haired boy to pay. He was going to show him who was boss.

...

It started out as any other school day. They had all been there long enough now for the class to establish a routine and a hierarchy, with Lea at the top. This was mostly due to the fear his reputation had on the other kids in class.

The bell for lunch had just rang when he spotted Hope. Lea had a habit of targeting the smaller boy for his pranks.

Lea didn't exactly pick on him. This was what he had told his mother when she had recieved a letter regarding his behaviour. It was more like, Hope was kind of a push over. Making it easy for Lea to get his own way whenever he was around him.

Lea decided to aprroached him. Stalking past other groups of kids running and playing nearby.

"Hiya Hope." He said slyly. Hope could only imagine what he was going to get him to do this time.

"Hey." Hope responded quietly, keeping his eyes downcast.

"I was just wondering.." Lea began as he looked down at him, he was a good deal taller than him.

Before he could continue he noticed another boy standing a little behind Hope.

It was that blue haired kid he'd encountered his first day of school. Lea could never remember his name.

After their little conversation on the first day of school, Hope had taken to hanging around the other boy. He decided he was his hero after hearing the way he dealt with Lea. As far as Hope was aware, no one had ever dealt with Lea like that before.

"What do you want?" Lea asked stepping away from Hope and towards the other kid.

"Nothing from you."

"Then why you hangin' around?"

"I was just coming over to talk to Hope when you appeared." Both boys were about the same height. Something Lea had noted after previous encounters. "Leave him alone."

"Hey now! Don't be like that. I wasn't doing anything wrong."

"Not at the moment." He now stood directly in front of Hope to keep Lea away from him. "So I'm just gonna stick around and make sure it stays that way."

"What are you? His bodyguard?" This got him a slight sneer from the other boy. He said nothing else to him, but he didn't budge from his protective spot in from of Hope either.

"I'm sure Hope can stand up for himself." Lea sneered at the two boys in front of him.

"I'm sure he can." He folded his arms and looked Lea directly in the eye.

"Yo Lea!" Some one yelled from the distance. The three boys looked over to see Reno and Rude approaching the little group.

"Speaking of bodyguards." The mumble came from the blue haired kid. There was a small smirk of his lips.

Reno and Rude came to stand by the three younger boys.

"Well what do we have here?" Rude drawled looking between them.

The arrival of the two seven year old boys talking to the three younger boys had caught the attention of a number of on lookers. Miss Trepe who was supervising lunch time today was the first to wtiness the arrival.

She kept an eye on five children. Aware of the conflict between her three students and acutley aware of what trouble Reno and Rude usually brought with them.

However she was standing to far to hear anything. She had been preoccupied when Lea first sought out Hope. Two of the girls in her class, Tifa Lockhart and Aerith Gainsborough had been playing hop scotch not to far from her, when little Aerith had fallen and grazed her knees on the pavment. It had taken a while to calm the weeping girl and eventually Miss Trepe had sent Aerith off to the school nurse, accompanied by Tifa.

When the girls had walked off did she notice The five boys.

"These kids troublin' you Lea?" Rude knew the situation well enough by now to know it was probably Lea troubling the other boys.

"Nah I can handle myself round these pipsqueaks." Lea sounded as arrogant as he felt.

"Just leave us alone." The boy with blue hair demanded.

"Yeah! We wern't doing anything to you!" This was the first time Hope had spoken up in a while. By now he had noticed the small crowd they had drawn and wanted to avoid a scene.

But that wasn't really happening. The groups of children of varying ages were slowly edging closer to the group of boys. All trying to listen in on the argument.

Miss Trepe was at a loss of what to do. So far none of the children had started fighting or arguing. She keeped her gaze fixed to the situation though as she moved towards them. She stood outside the group of children spectating.

So far of the group involved, only Hope had noticed the audience. The other boys either didn't realised or they didn't care.

"You were messin' with Lea." Reno informed Hope. "If you mess with Lea then you mess with us."

"He started it though!" Hope cried indignantly. He moved his position so that he was standing next top the blue haired kid as opposed to behind him.

"Lea." Reno turned to look towards his smaller friend. "I'm guessin' this was the kid you were tellin' us about." He indicated to Hope's ally.

"That's him."

"Well maybe it's time you showd him whose boss." Rude moved to stand on Lea's other side.

The collective children gathered around them all held their breaths, anticipating some sort of spat.

Miss Trepe decided now would be a good time to split the boys up.

She started through the rather larger than was desired, audience towards the boys. It was too late however.

By the time she had finally decided to take action, the boys little spat had escalated.

Lea, after being encouraged by his older friends had walked purposfully towards his blue haired opponant and shoved him roughly to the ground with a thud. If Hope was still standing behind him he would have fallen as well.

After witnessing his truimphant shove, Lea stood back looking at Reno and Rude smugly. They both smirked in response to his arrogance.

Sadly for Lea however, he only had a short time to revel in his victory.

The boy he had pushed, jumped to his feet almost to quick for anyone to realise. While Lea was exchanging an accomplished glance with Reno and Rude, the blued haired boy sprang forwards to where Lea stood.

He extended his fist and made contact with the side of Lea's face. A mixture of being caught off guard and the other kid's suprisingly hard hit sent Lea sprawling to the ground in a very undignified manor.

An audible gasp from the crowd went out as they closed ranks to get a closer look. This caused Miss Trepe to have to fight her way to the centre of the group.

The blue haired boy probably would have felt a little smug at the result of his rather impressive punch, if Lea didn't then jump back on his feet and fly towards him.

Lea grabbed the other boy by the shoulders and the two started tustling.

A small excited cheer from the fights spectators sounded as the watched.

The blue haired kid stuck his foot around Lea's ankle, causing him the fall. Lea grunted as he fell on his back. He still had hold of the other kid though so he dragged him down on top of him.

Now the boys were trading kicks, punches, pinches and scratches. Anything to try and put the other in his place.

Hope started towards the two boys, who were hissing like cats. Shocked that his new friend would behave like this, but eager to help him get the better of Lea.

Reno and Rude had originally thought the other kid would't have been able to hold his own in the fight were shocked as well. Both the blue haired boy and their red headed friend were pretty evenly matched.

They both started towards them to try help Lea out.

Miss Trepe put a stop to all the excitment however.

"That's enough!"

Her shouted command was aimed at the the children laughing excitedly at the fight, as well as to the actual one's involved.

"Lea! Isa! Stop this right now!" Her command was a little redudant now. Both boys stopped and looked up when they heard her shout first time.

This was the first time they noticed the crowd surrounding them as well.

Miss Trepe approached them, having finally fought through the crowd. She reached and grabbed Lea's elbow pulling his up. She then reached out and did the same to the blue haired kid.

Both of them were covered in grazes and scratches. Lea had a split lip and there was a small bruise already forming on the others boy's cheekbone.

"Show's over everybody!" She called to the now dissapointed crowd. "All of you run along or you'll all be staying after school for an hour." This got the children moving quicky. However Reno, Rude and Hope all lingered, not quite sure if this was aimed at them as well.

"That means you as well." It was almost as if she had read their minds. They scurried off. Hope looking back one last time before scampering along.

"That's it you two! I'm taking you to see the Headmaster!"

...

Both boys had been sent straight the the Headmaster, who had been informed of the fight by Miss Trepe.

As punishment for their unruly behaviour, they were made to stay after school for an hour and forced to do odd jobs around their classroom. This mostly consisted of scraping gum of the underside of tables and chairs.

After Miss Trepe has issued them each a blunt scraping device and a bucket to dispose of the used in they were set to work.

Punishment like this wasn't unusual for Lea. He'd had several after school detentions now. Even though after school detentions wern't usually dished out to the younger students. Younger students were usually kept in over lunch or banned from doing fun activities as punishment for bad behaviour.

The other boy however, or Isa as Miss Trepe had called him earlier, wasn't used to recieving such punishments. Mostly because he was usually well behaved.

Miss Trepe sat at her desk going over homework from the other students, keeping an eye out on the two grumbling boys.

"Thanks alot for this." He heard Isa mumbling. He was working on a particularly dry piece of gum in the corner of same table Lea was working on. Lea looked over from his corner.

"Hey this is all your fault you know." He usually would have yelled this, but decided to keep his tone low to avoid alerting Miss Trepe. "If you hadn't punched me we probably wouldn't be in this mess."

"Yeah well you started it. You pushed me."

Both boys turned to glare at one another. Obviously neither having any thing else to say on the subject. The glare last only a few moments before they turned back to the demeaning task they had been given.

"Why'd you hit me anyway?" Lea lightly trailed a finger along the lip which Isa's punch had had split. "A shove aint worth a punch."

"I was tired of you picking on Hope." Isa answered after a few seconds of silence. He said this while still working on that stubborn piece of gum.

"Yeah well, I know not to anymore now don't I? Not with his bodyguard around."

"Yeah now you do."

The way Isa said this didn't sound threatening in the least. Lea wasn't sure if it was supposed to.

"That...was a good punch by the way." It almost killed Lea to admit it, but he had to admit what he was reeling from most of all, was that was a pretty good hit. Even if it had been becuase he'd been caught off guard.

Isa was slightly suprised by the compliment, but glowed a little from the praise.

"I know."

If there was one thing Lea was not expecting from this seemingly humble kid who kept mostly to himself, it was his slightly cocky response.

It would almost sound like something he would say himself.

"It woulda' turned out different if I was expectin' it though."

Isa stopped what he was doing to give Lea an unbelieving look.

"Nah. I don't think so."

Another quick witted response. This kid just kept em' coming.

"If you're gonna do it again warn me." By now both boys had stopped scraping the gum and had turned slightly towrds each other.

"Why?"

"So I have time to fight back. You know make it a fair fight."

Isa laughed a little at that. Lea really had some nerve.

"Sure whatever." He was almost dismissive of Lea's request.

"Don't say it like that. You have to mean it." Lea raised his voice slightly to try get more of a response from Isa.

Isa rolled his eyes and turned towards Lea.

"Sure. Whatever." He repeated a little more firmly this time than the last.

"Well, just as long as you got it memorized." Lea turned back to his gum filled corner of the table and started scraping again.

"Don't worry." Isa said absently as he to set to work again. "I got it memorized."

Neither boy was aware that this conversation would clear the way of communication for the both of them.

They just assumed that when they left they would go back to their old ways of bitter encounters. They had no idea that this stilted, sightly stiff conversation would slowly lead to friendship.

They would also have no idea that their friendship would one day lead to something much darker and sinister.

But that was still a little far off at this point in time. After all they had only been on speaking terms for five minuets.


	2. Chapter Two

A/N: So genius that I am, I didn't realise that I put exclaimer at the start of the previous chapter, as opposed to Disclaimer. Oh well. Anyway hope you enjoy this chapter. Let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or places in this story.

...

Needless to say after their initial dislike for one another, it took sometime for Lea and Isa to actually become friends.

It's not always easy to just get over the so far, turbulent encounters the two had previously had.

When both boys went back to school the next day, it was seemingly clear that some things had changed. Not just in the way the treated each other, but in the way the other children in class started to treat them as well.

After witnessing someone finally standing up to Lea, the children weren't as afraid of him anymore. Apparently all it took was a punch in the face for the other children to realise that Lea was just another scrawny kid like them.

This still didn't have him winning any popularity contests though. He may have been brought more down to their level, but it didn't mean they had to like him. He was still the same kid who had used his status to get his own way all the time. It just meant that now they weren't afraid of talking back to him.

When it came to Isa however, he found himself in the position Lea originally had in the class. All the other children were now afraid of him.

Both boys had found themselves as kind of the loners of the class now.

Lea had been the class bully. Isa had been the kid crazy enough to put him in his place.

So now both boys didn't really have friend's.

Hope was put into a difficult position by his family. They'd heard all about Hope's friend fighting Lea. Hope had run home and relayed the story to them, barley able to contain his excitement. His mother had then suggested he stay away from Isa for a while. She wasn't sure she like how Isa had gotten violent.

Hope still like Isa however. He wanted to hang out with him more but had no choice but to comply to his mother's wishes. At least for a while.

His older cousin, Snow had been asked to watch out for him in the playground. He was very protective of Hope, even though they drove each other crazy and had agreed to keep an eye on things whenever possible.

Snow was eleven years old. He was now in his last year at this school and would soon move up to Junior High. Even though Hope knew he would miss his cousin being around, he was sort of looking forward to being away from him so he could reunite with his friend.

"We just gotta wait 'til Snow moves up to the next school then we can hang out all the time." Hope had informed Isa when he told him of his mother's disapproval.

Isa had no other choice but to accept it. He didn't mind being alone all that much. Well this is what he told himself.

...

About a week after Hope had told Isa they couldn't be friends for a while, there was a new development within Miss Trepe's melodramatic class.

It had started the Monday morning. All the children had wondered into the class like usual.

There was excited chatter about what they'd done over the weekend, some children played games of throwing and catching various objects.

Lea had walked into class without a care in the world. He took his seat at the front of the room, still so Miss Trepe could keep an eye on him.

Isa had slunk in not long afterwards, taking his seat towards the back of the room.

"Alright boys and girls!" Miss Trepe had called jovially to her students after they had finished taking their seats. The children looked up at the sound of her voice. "Today we are going to head over to the castle library and get started on a little project."

She turned to the chalk board and started writing on it; the chalk occasionally squeaking as she went.

As she scribbled on the board, an excited murmur swept through the class.

This would be the first time the class would use Radiant Garden's castle library.

The library was often used by the local school children when they needed assistance with school work. It was large enough to hold entire classes, so a lot of the time the teachers would arrange class trips to the castle.

Miss Trepe's class had heard all about other classes going there. Now they had found out they would be going, they could hardly wait to finally see the place for themselves.

She stood back from the board so the class could she what she had written.

"The project is all about space."

This caused Isa to perk up a little. He'd always had an interest in space.

"I want you to get into pairs and research everything you can about about outer space. This includes other planets, the stars, the moon, just anything you can find out."

This caused Isa to slump back into his seat. Miss Trepe usually let them choose who they worked with in class. Since his decline in friends after his fight with Lea, no one was usually willing to pair up with him.

Lea was in pretty much the same boat. He just didn't let it affect him as much. This was mostly because he'd always been used to other kids not wanting to work with him.

"Right I'll give you three minuets to choose a partner." Miss Trepe barely got to finish her sentence. All the children leapt excitedly from their seats, in a rush to find someone to work with.

Lea and Isa were the only ones not to move.

After all the other children had chosen a partner they all took a seat and whispered excitedly about the project.

Miss Trepe had noticed straight away that the two class loners hadn't even attempted to find a partner.

Of the entire class there were only four children without a partner. They included Lea and Isa, but also Hope and a girl called Vanille.

Vanille was a very bright and energetic girl with alot of friends to spare. It just so happened that her other friends had all picked each other, leaving Vanille on her own.

Vanille noticed who else was left and shrugged to herself. Seemingly making a decision. She grabbed Hope by the arm and made him sit down next to her in the closest available seat. Hope fell into the chair with an audible 'Oof' and blushed once he realised he was the only boy in class to be paired with a girl.

Vanille wasn't too bothered by this. Just as long as she wasn't with the ex bully or the crazy kid, she was fine.

Miss Trepe cursed under her breath when she saw that Lea and Isa were the only two left.

She couldn't see any way they would agree to work together. Even if they did, it was unlikely they would get along.

True, they didn't argue anymore but they did a pretty job at avoiding each other. This was an arrangement that had worked up until now.

But rules were rules. It wouldn't be fair if they had to do all the work by 'd just have to deal with it.

"Lea." Her voice made him slowly turn towards her. "Would you and Isa mind working together?" Her question was soft but firm. This was quite a delicate situation for the children.

Lea contemplated the question. He was never bothered with homework. He couldn't see any point in it himself. When he did do it he often left it to the last minuet.

He craned his head to look back Isa. His expression asking him what he thought.

Isa just shrugged in response.

Lea turned back to Miss Trepe and mimicked Isa's shrug.

"Fantastic." Miss Trepe tried to sound bright, but the strained expression on her face gave her away. "You have one week to complete the project. Why don't we go to the library and get a head start."

The children scrambled from their seats and went to line up at the door. Miss Trepe led them out. Silently dreading the week ahead.

...

Ansem the Wise had inherited his castle from Master Daichi, his former mentor.

His mentor had been without a doubt the wisest man in Radiant Garden.

He had taken Ansem on as his apprentice before the boy had even reached puberty. Immediately recognising young Ansem's potential and taking him under his wing.

The two worked closely together until the old man passed away. The master, left his castle to Ansem as his last wish. Ansem then vowed to further his and his master's research to it's fullest extent.

In turn Ansem transformed the somewhat dreary castle into the magnificent scientific hub it was now. He was determined to show the world his and his master's studies. Worried that his master would depart from the world with no one knowing the extent to his knowledge and aptitude, Ansem opened the castle to the townsfolk.

The once empty rooms had been transformed into exhibits, showcasing the master's earliest research theories and discoveries. The exhibits ranging from anything from early research about plant life to basic research about the darkness of human nature. A sign in this exhibit stating that Master Ansem was currently looking further into this subject.

It wasn't long before the now, beautiful castle attracted the attention of those from outside the town.

Word spread very quickly about Ansem and his vast amount of knowledge, which seemed to be expanding every day.

Not long after the castle's grand reopening, Ansem become known as Ansem the Wise.

With the castle becoming a more popular tourist attraction as well, he'd decided to employ a number of guardsmen around the castle. Each guard would stand at his or her assigned post during all hours of the day. There were certain areas within the castle that he needed to keep out of the public eye.

Master Ansem then started to take on apprentices of his own. In order to cover more grounds in his research.

Some had only been under his tutelage for a short while, but others had stayed on with him for years.

Yes, Master Ansem was very pleased that his and his master's work was still continuing. He couldn't see how his own research would one day be turned against him. He would also never have believed that his own apprentice would have a hand in it.

...

They had all seen the castle from the outside before. Countless times in fact.

Only a handful of the children had ever been inside however.

Pretty much all the children who had never been before could only imagine what it was like.

But none of them could have prepared themselves for what awaited them.

The walls and floor, both paved so brightly they practically glowed. There were huge sweeping staircases which lead off into various unseen rooms of the castle. Large pictures, mounted in frames decorated the walls. Chandeliers fitted with candles dangled from the high ceilings.

If the castle had seemed big from the outside, it was positiviley enormous from the inside.

Even all the townsfolk bustling around the foyer didn't do anything to lessen it's vastness.

Lea, having never been inside himself before, longed to scamper around the hallways. He noticed the lengthy banisters supporting the staircase and was over come with the desire to slide down it.

He was also desperate to explore as much of the place as he possibly could. He would have run off the moment they arrived, had it not been for one of the castle guards shifting them hurriedly into the library.

Lea didn't usually have much patience for libraries. But even he had to admit that this one was quite a spectacle.

He also made a note of all the staircases he could slide down in here as well.

With the help of the head librarian, Miss Trepe quickly set about getting her class settled into seats around the library.

"So do you actually know anything about this stuff?" Lea was slumped in his seat at a small table. Isa had picked out a couple of books for them to study from.

"Some stuff." Isa replied, not taking his eyes from the page he was reading. "You?"

"Not really." Lea answered.

Both boys sat in silence for a long time. Isa seemingly absorbed in his book and Lea lazily flicking through another.

Isa would occasionally make notes on a piece of paper in front of him.

"All the planets up there have their own moon." Isa said almost out of nowhere.

Lea had started to grow uncomfortable from the silence.

"I thought they all shared the same one as us?" Lea responded, showing just how ignorant he was on the subject.

"Nope." Isa shook his head and went back to reading. Lea leant forward, crossing his arms on the table.

"How do you know that?" His question caused Isa to look at his strangely. He said nothing in response, just gestured to the book in his hands.

"Oh." This was all he could really say.

"What about sun?" Lea decide to try fill in the silence.

"What?"

"Does each planet have a different sun?" Lea's tone actually sounded some what interested.

"Nope." Isa bluntly answered before going back to his book.

"Well how does that work then?" He was a little confused.

"Each planet orbits the sun." Isa was reading a loud from the book in his hands. "So that means the sun is like the centre of the universe." He put the book down, scribbling some notes on the paper.

"Hmm..." Lea grunted in response. "Bet you didn't know that the stars are planets?" Lea tried to brag. He didn't like that he seemed so clueless on the subject. "My mom told me that, so it _has_ to be true."

"I knew that already. My Grandpa told me ages ago." While Lea was talking Isa had picked up another book. This one was mostly about the sun. "Bet you don't know why the sun set is red?"

"...No I don't know." Lea's tone sank slightly. He'd tried to think of what the answer could be, but just couldn't come up with anything. "Are you saying you know?"

Isa sat up a little straighter and clear his throat as he read from the book.

"Light is made up of lots of different colours. From all of the colours, red is the one that travels the furthest." Isa lowered the book back on the table, looking for a reaction from the red head opposite from him.

Lea shrugged at him. However he secretly thought it was an interesting fact. He decided that when he got home he'd tell it to his mother.

"Pfft. You only know this stuff from books anyway."

"Well you gotta learn it from somewhere."

The two sat in a slightly more bearable silence this time. Lea picked up one of the books in front of him and looked at the cover.

"Hey!" Lea's tone now changing to indignant. "These books are for grown ups. No wonder you knew so much more than me. This is cheating you know?"

"No way!"

Isa would have fired more of a comeback at Lea, however something caught his eye.

Or rather someone.

Master Ansem himself waltzed into the library. Immediately catching the attention of everyone gathered in the room.

Several people called over a greeting. However Master Ansem only waved a distracted hand and walked further into the library.

He was being followed by another man. He was dressed in a lab coat very similar to Master Ansem's. His hair was a kind of sandy blond colour and was cut to shoulder length.

He continued to trail behind Master Ansem, until Ansem had retrieved the book he was apparently looking for, and the two wordlessly bustled out of the library.

"Hm? I wonder where they're off to in such a hurry?" Isa wondered aloud.

After Isa had voiced his question Lea got purposefully out of his seat. He looked over at the teacher, to make sure she wasn't looking. Satisfied to see she was busy dealing with a couple of girls on the other side of the library, he started to wonder off.

"Where are you going?" Isa reached out and grabbed the red head's sleeve.

"I'm just gonna take a look around." He answered, looking back toward Miss Trepe, making sure Isa's question hadn't caught her attention.

"Why?"

"Are you serious?" The look on Isa's face told him he didn't know what he was getting at. "There's this whole entire castle to explore and you're happy to just sit in the library?"

Isa shrugged. He hadn't really considered it.

"Well I'm not just gonna sit here." Lea sounded defiant and started off again.

"You're gonna get it trouble." He heard Isa call to him.

He turned back towards his classmate and shrugged before he turned back and walked to the library entrance as casually as he could. Being fully aware that running or trying to look sneaky would alert the attention of Miss Trepe.

He was so desperate to get up and _do_ something, he'd be damned if he was going to get caught out.

As he got to the door, he let out a relieved breath. He knew he needed to check to see if Miss Trepe was aware of his absence, or if someone else had alerted her to his mischievous antics. So he ducked behind the door frame and looked back.

She was still busy dealing with the group of girls.

However he did notice Isa was no longer sat at their table.

Lea felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach.

His first assumption was that Isa had run off to tell on him.

_Little Snitch._

He supposed he could still get some exploring done. If he went now, it might take them a while before they would actually find him.

Sweat was practically dripping from his face as he tried to formulate his plan. He was to wrapped up in it to notice the person who had just come to stand by him and nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt an unpredicted tap on his shoulder.

Isa reared back a little from Lea's reaction. He waited for Lea to calm himself before he asked his next question.

"Well? Are we going or what?" Isa looked at Lea and made his way further into the foyer.

"What do you mean?" Lea asked while trying to catch his breath. "Where are you going?"

"With you." The tone of Isa's voice indicated that he thought it was obvious.

"Why?" Lea glanced back once more and hurried after Isa.

"Someone's gotta keep you out of trouble."

...

Neither Lea nor Isa, knew where to go.

They were two members of the class who had never been here before.

But that just made it all the more exciting.

Both had silently agreed to keep an eye out for anything interesting. They were also on the look out for any indication that they were going to be caught out.

Abruptly after leaving the library, they had to avoid catching the castle doorman's attention.

Luckily for them he was facing away from them, caught up in a conversation with a visitor to the castle.

The castle employees weren't the only people they had to be careful of.

The place was packed to the brim with visitors. The castle itself was almost like _The_ tourist attraction of Radiant Garden.

People from all over the world would travel for days, just to see what all the fuss was about.

There were no other children unaccompanied by an adult, so if someone did notice the two of them it would likely cause some panic.

Fortunately, the visiting public were too busy gawking at the exhibits to notice them.

"This way!" Lea pointed towards the grand staircase just ahead of them.

As quickly as they could, they scurried along the hallway and started up the stairs. Still careful not to draw any unwanted attention.

"What is it your looking for?" Isa asked once they'd reached the top step.

Both were a little breathless. The stairs were steeper than they first thought.

"Anything really." Lea answered but was to busy observing his new surroundings to look at Isa. "But I guess I really wanna see the places where they do all the experiments."

They slowly started down the long hallway in front of them. Nothing too exciting had caught their eye yet.

So far this floor just seemed to be made up of various rooms.

The two explorers peered into each room as they went. In them they had found artifacts dedicated to Master Ansem's previous scientific findings. Not all of which were that interesting in their opinion.

Who cared if there were so many different types of rocks in Radiant Garden?

So far this search wasn't turning up much. After finding an entire room exhibiting a wide range of plant species, Isa was beginning to wonder if the experiments and expeditions Master Ansem spent so much time on were really anything worth getting up in arms about.

"Are you sure there are even places like that here?"

It wasn't looking likely. Even if it turned out there was an experimentation room, Isa considered that it might not even be worth a look at. The other rooms seemed testament to that.

"There has to be! Reno and Rude told me."

"How do they know?"

"I...don't really know." Isa's question had made Lea deflate a little. "But there must be, otherwise why would they all walk around wearing lab coats?" Lea's tone picked up a little as he tried to convince himself.

"If this is a castle, wouldn't there be a dungeon?" Isa sounded slightly hopeful at the prospect.

"I hadn't even thought about that!" Lea was far too excited now. "After we find the lab, we can look for the dungeon!"

The two traipsed forward with vigour in their step. Both extremely intrigued as to what they might find.

They made their way to the end of the hall.

There didn't seem to be any other people here. Either there was nothing worth looking at here, or they were all too busy in the plant and rock exhibits.

At the end of the hallway however was another door. There was a sign covering it which said 'Staff Only Beyond This Point.'

That would explain why no one else was looking around back here.

Any other person who had seen the sign had probably just shrugged and wondered back the way they came.

However Lea and Isa were far too hyped up to not try and continue on.

Isa reached out after checking they weren't being followed and pushed the door handle down.

They were astounded to see that the door wasn't locked. They held their breath in anticipation as to what they might find back here.

They were, unfortunately only in for disappointment.

All they happened upon was another series of staircases. They weren't put off however. As far as they were concerned each staircase led to somewhere wonderful and was just waiting to be explored.

"Let's go up." Isa stated as he took charge.

"Why up?" Lea followed as Isa began clambering up the stone steps.

"Well the dungeon would probably be downstairs. So that means the lab will be upstairs." As far as Lea was concerned, there was no arguing with such logic.

"So what do you think they experiment on in there?" Lea was so eager to find out, he wanted to see if Isa was on the same page.

Isa didn't get the chance to answer however.

"You two aren't supposed to be back here." A loud voice boomed from a couple of steps behind them.

The boys didn't even get a chance to turn around, as they were each swept up by a very bulky young man.

He didn't say another word. He just kept hold of them, holding each in one arm. His stern face kept forward, not even glancing at the boys.

Turns out they hadn't been as sneaky as they thought.

The large intimidating man walked them back the exact same way they had previously came.

Isa noted he was wearing the same uniform as the other castle guards, indicating he was one of them.

Lea was muttering in frustration under his breath. Furious that he'd allowed them to get caught.

It didn't take long for them to reach the library. Some of the other children in the class looked up to see them being hauled in by the man.

"Miss Trepe!" Hope's partner, Vanille called across the room. "There they are!"

Miss Trepe then appeared from the back of the library. A look of relief and anguish on her face. She flew towards the three of them, her step a little shaky from panic.

"Oh thank goodness!" She breathed with relief as she came to stand in front of them.

"I take it these are your missing students?" The bulky man asked. It wasn't really a question however. He knew perfectly well these were the two he was supposed to be looking for.

He and many of the other guardsmen had been ordered to look for them after Miss Trepe discovered they were missing.

She had tearfully described everything about her missing students to the head guard. She had tried to contain herself, but in a place as busy as this it was a very real possibility that something had happened to the boys.

Her frantic worry had her imagining all sorts of incidents. Her mind coming up from anything from kidnapping to one of them somehow obtaining some horrendous injury.

Now that she saw them both standing here without a scratch on them, her face flushed a little with shame. Maybe she had over reacted a little.

Miss Trepe nodded in response and the large brunette man set the two of them back on their feet.

"Where were you two?" Miss Trepe demanded. At that moment a small number of castle employees arrived at the scene.

"Are these the two?" Asked Barret, the head of the castle guards.

He was an extremely muscly, dark skinned man. Probably one of the most intimidating in Radiant Garden. That included the man who had just carried them to the library.

"These are the ones." Miss Trepe informed him.

"They were snooping around the staff only areas." The man who found them spoke up.

The look on Miss Trepe's face told them they were probably in a lot of trouble.

"Barret. Who was supposed to be on guard there?" Isa looked towards the one who asked the question and realised it was Master Ansem.

With all the questions and accusatory tones, it was safe to assume all the adults had been in a panic. This made Isa feel a little embarrassed.

"Sazh Katzroy, Sir."

"And who is the one who found them?"

"That would be me." Their finder stepped forward slightly.

"What's your name son?"

"Aeleus, Sir."

"I commend you." Lord Ansem's voice held a note of admiration. He then turned towards Lea and Isa. "I'm glad nothing untoward happened to either of you. But I must ask that next time you visit my castle, you stay with an adult the entire time. Do you understand?" He looked down on the both, making them feel only an inch tall.

"Yes Sir." Both of them grumbled. Lea's whole body slumped forward and Isa couldn't take his eyes off his shoes.

"If this happens again, then I'm afraid neither of you will be welcome in my castle any longer." He didn't wait for a response, instead he turned towards Barret. "Commander Wallace."

Barret stood to attention.

"Let's go and discuss the conduct of some of your guardsmen." He led the way out of the library, obviously expecting Barret to follow.

"Not bad for your first day on the job kid." Barret patted Aeleus on the shoulder before following Lord Ansem out the library.

"Thank you again." Miss Trepe said one last time.

Aeleus didn't say anything, he just gave a quick nod and retreated back to his post.

Lea and Isa gulped, both dreading Miss Trepe's next words.

A detention was looking pretty likely.

"You two." She began, her voice edging with fury. "Are in so much trouble."

...

Lea's mother and Isa's father had arrived roughly around the same time. They stood at the school gate waiting for their son's.

"Your kid kept behind as well?" Lea's mother having no idea just how long the two would be waiting, decided to make small talk. After all they were the only one's there. They might as well make the most of it.

Isa's father just nodded and grunted in response.

The in eloquent answer made Lea's mother feel awkward around the man.

"How did you know?" His question startled her, so far he hadn't seemed like a particularly talkative person. Also she wasn't sure if he was joking. Surely it was obvious? Here they were almost an hour after school had been let out and no one else was around.

"Well it's kinda obvious isn't it?" She put her thought's into words.

"I suppose so."

Another long pause. Maybe she shouldn't have bothered with the small talk. But it was just something she always seemed to do. She often found it unbearable sitting in silence. This was something Lea had inherited from her. That along with a sense of mischief and they shared the same sparkling green eyes.

However her energy and vibrancy had somewhat dimmed with age and the exhaustion of raising a child alone. It was still there to a degree, but it was no way as bad as it was when she was a child.

It was still there in Lea however. If she was anything like Lea is now, then her respect for her own parents hitches up a notch.

"So if you don't mind me asking...But what's your kid behind for?"

"Misbehaving on a school trip." Was the man's slightly irritated response. He didn't sound irritated with her, but more with the situation.

"Mine too."

It was at that moment that they spotted both boys leaving the school.

Unlike the other times when Lea had gotten a detention, he was now joking and chatting with the blue haired boy next to him. Usually detentions put him in a foul mood.

Looking at the boy Lea was with and the man stood near her, it was easy to see they were father and son. They both had the same shade of blue hair. Although the man's was neatly trimmed, whereas the boy's stuck up in odd peaks around his head.

The man didn't say another word to her. He waited patiently until his son walked up to him.

The other boy noted to grim look on his father's face. The smile which had previously brightened up his face was now gone and replaced with a look of dread.

He stepped away from Lea and presented himself to his father.

"Come on Isa. Let's go." Both father and son walked off. The man walking a few steps behind his son, so as to keep an eye on him. Not that it seemed the boy would try anything.

She watched them both sullenly walk away, turning to fix Lea with a stern glare when the little family had rounded the corner.

"Well?" She demanded of him.

"Well what?" Lea still stood sulking in front of her.

"Well have you learnt your lesson?" It was a pointless question, but one she had asked every time he had received a punishment at school.

"Yeah sure." He grumbled his usual answer, kicking the nearby fence lightly.

She knew that it probably wouldn't be long before they were in this situation again.

She hoped that one day he'd actually learn his lesson so they could stop with all the detentions.

She doubted it though. If he was anything like her, which he was visibly was, then it would be a while before he would truly learn his lesson and grow up.

"Hey mom." He said out of nowhere on the trip home. "Wanna know why the sun set is red?"


	3. Chapter Three

A/N: So I'm updating this later than I originally wanted to. Buy hey at least it's here now.

Enjoy!

...

"Aeleus!"

The tall brunet rolled his eyes at the voice which called out to him. He recognised it easily. He'd known it for years after all. Having grown up, hearing it on an almost daily basis. Reluctantly he turned towards the obnoxious voice to see a familiar man approaching him.

The voice belonged to Braig, a fellow guardsmen at the castle. A rather lackluster one in fact.

At the time of their first official meeting, Aeleus had been in his last year of school. He'd always envied Braig for his care free personality and independence. After Aeleus had learned what Braig did for a living, he craved to one day do it himself. Or something similar. He'd gotten his chance recently and was desperate to prove himself.

Now Aeleus was older and had more of a comprehension of the adult world, he grew irritated of Braig's carelessness. Braig was a fair bit older than him but acted like a teenager. How he'd managed to get his position as a castle guard, Aeleus had no idea. All he knew was that Braig had unknowingly influenced him to aim high in life. Higher than he assumed someone like Braig would ever reach.

Now the slim man sauntered towards him, an arrogant smile on his face.

"Heard all about your daring rescue yesterday." He patted him on the back in a sort of patronising congratulations. "Never knew you had a soft spot for kids."

"Believe me." Aeleus' voice had a warning edge to it. "I don't."

"Not according to the grapevine."

"I was just doing my duty. It would have been a disaster if they'd come across the laboratories." Was his simple response. He turned away from Braig, eager to keep the encounter with him as short and merciful as possible. Braig had other ideas though.

"A true hero." Sneered Braig.

"Braig!" Both Aeleus and Braig looked in the direction of the yell. It was Captain Barret Wallace. He'd been patrolling the hallways that morning. After the two young boys had very nearly discovered the private experimentation rooms, security had been enhanced.

Now, thanks to Captain Wallace each room, stairway, hallway and entrance in the castle would be watched twenty four hours a day. Captain Wallace himself had spent hours altering the work schedule of his guard force, ensuring nowhere was left out and none of his watchmen or women where left without an area to patrol. If anyone was to leave their post before another member of the guard force arrived to take over, there would be severe punishment. As Sazh had discovered.

The large head guard advanced on the pair. He came to stand before them, reaching his full height. Which was much more than either of them.

"Braig." He began, his voice sounding as stern as ever. "I don't believe this is your post."

Braig squared up to his boss, trying but failing to broaden his shoulders.

"I was just making my way there now, boss." He didn't even have the decency to sound like he meant it.

Captain Wallace grunted at the smaller man, signalling he was getting irritated with him.

"You were supposed to be there ten minuets ago."

Aeleus wisely kept his eyes forward and his mouth shut. He was still new to the job, but he was well aware he needed to stay in Captain Wallace's good books. He'd made a great impression the day before, it would be foolish of him to spoil it now.

"I just wanted to offer the new guy a congratulations on his heroic first day." Braig seemed intent on dragging Aeleus into it though.

"Leave Aeleus alone." Captain Wallace demanded of his older employee. "Now go and relieve Dilan of his post."

Captain Wallace said nothing more on the subject. Instead he waited for Braig to saunter off to guard the basements.

"Oh, Braig." Captain Wallace called calmly to the retreating man. "Anymore incidents like this and you're looking at a suspension."

Braig turned and saluted lazily to his superior.

"Anything you say boss." He continued walking off, muttering to himself.

Captain Wallace said nothing to Aeleus, just nodded an acknowledgment at him and carried on with his duty.

Aeleus released a silent sigh of relief. Thrilled that it was finally over. Silently he was marveling at how a man of nearly twenty four years old acted more like a nineteen year old then he did.

...

It seemed to be an unspoken agreement that Lea and Isa were friends. After their escapades at the castle, the two had become almost inseparable. Much to the confusion of everyone around them. Most people were slightly bewildered as to how it happened. How did two children who seemed to hate each other so intensely, just become friends?

Neither boy could provide an explanation, because they couldn't explain it themselves. They hadn't really thought about it either. It just was.

Lea's mother was thrilled to meet Isa. He seemed like a good influence for her unruly son. Isa's father however wasn't really sure about Lea. He'd heard stories about the boy and witnessed a couple of incidents in the past. Radiant Garden was relatively small, so practically everyone was familiar with each other.

Reno and Rude were perhaps the most confused over all. Other than Hope maybe.

Both of Lea's older friends had endured endless rants from Lea about his original dislike of Isa. Both offering him the solution of putting Isa in his place.

Lea vouched for Isa however. In his opinion someone who was willing to escort him on a search through the castle and make sure he stayed out of trouble, was a good person to have around.

Hope could barely comprehend Isa's reasoning for befriending Lea as well. After all Lea had put both Isa and himself through, he just couldn't wrap his head around it.

"What's the deal?" Hope asked during school one afternoon.

He asked during class time, seeing as this was the only time his older cousin wouldn't be around to see him conversing with someone he'd been told to stay away from.

"I don't know what the big problem is." Isa just shrugged and walked away. To be honest he was tired of this conversation.

Isa couldn't see why Hope would be so upset. The two hadn't hung out since he fought with Lea. Hope had also found a new friend in Vanille as well. The two had been inseparable since completing the class project.

His father had been questioning the new friendship a lot as well. Even more after he'd first been introduced to Lea.

"I thought you didn't like him?" His father asked later the same day Hope had approached him.

"That's changed now." Isa mumbled into his dinner. He didn't dare shrug in front of the older man. He knew how much his father hated shrugging. Instead he refused to look up and meet his father's eyes across the dinner table.

His father said nothing more on the matter this time. What else could he say that they hadn't already discussed? It was getting to the point where they had started talking in circles. Whatever Isa's usual responses were to his questioning, they usually came up with no clear resolution. His father would just have to accept this new friendship.

The boy's in question didn't really pay much attention to all the confusion surrounding them. As far as they were concerned that was everyone else's problem and not their's.

Lea's mother had told them this. Multiple times in fact.

"I don't get what everyone's problem is." Lea said to her one afternoon as she collected him and Isa from school.

By now Isa had become a regular visitor in her home. This was a friend on Lea's she approved of very much. At first she was as unsure as Isa's father about the friendship. Especially after she heard that it was Isa who had accompanied her son through the castle on some ridiculous mission to find something that might not even be there. But after Lea had invited him over for dinner a few times, she found she liked the young boy and decided he may even be a good influence on Lea.

She was of course, unaware, that Isa would usually join in on Lea's schemes. In fact he was usually the one to take charge. That was after Lea had come up with the idea in the first place.

"They're just trying to figure it out for themselves." This was really the only explanation she could offer.

"It's not like were hurting anyone though." Isa looked to her for another explanation.

"Look." She began, getting the boy's attention. "If people really are having a hard time understanding it, then that isn't your problem it's theirs. Understand?"

Both boys nodded to her and turned to carry on conversing with each other. They hadn't thought of it like that.

School carried on like this for a while. The other children still wary of the pair of them and avoiding them at all costs.

Lea didn't spend as much time with Reno and Rude either. He was still on goods terms with them, but Isa didn't like them and they didn't like him. So it was easier to just keep them away from each other.

After the incident at the castle, Lea and Isa were banned from going there to do any homework assignments. This was decided by the school itself. If the two were to wonder off again, it would make the school look bad. This gave the boys no other option then to use the small school library to aid them with any assignments.

After Lea's mom told them not to worry about other people though, they kept pretty much to themselves. They seemed happy this way and everyone else in class weren't to bothered by them when they kept to themselves.

Occasionally there would be a bit of trouble, usually caused by Lea. Whenever he would get some mad idea he would rush into it head first. Now that he had Isa on his side though, nobody took what they did seriously. It seems that Isa was the only one to keep Lea's behaviour under wraps.

...

"Where's your mom?" Lea's question directed at Isa came on a weekend.

It had been bugging the now, seven year old Lea for some time. He was still to young to understand where babies came from. He'd only ever been raised by his mother and had never met anyone around his age without a mother. Other than Isa of course, who only seemed to have his dad around. Up to this point, Lea had just sort of assumed having a dad was an optional thing.

The out of the blue question surprised Isa. He looked up from the homework the two were working on. This was one of the rare times they were spending time at Isa's house. His dad worked alot, so any time they spent together outside of school would be at Lea's house. This being the prompt for Lea's slightly inappropriate question. Lea was probably to young to appreciate that this may be an uncomfortable question as well. Luckily Isa's dad was in another room.

"Dad says she died when I was three." Isa's response was simple.

"Died?" Lea questioned.

Both boys were too young to really understand the severity of death, but they both understood the term. To a degree at least.

"I'm sorry." Lea didn't sound sorry. He was just mimicking what he'd heard his mother say a couple of times before in this situation.

Isa shrugged a little at Lea.

"Don't you miss her?" Lea asked of Isa's response.

"I don't remember that much about her."

Silence settled between the two boys as Isa turned back to his homework. The question still hung in the air though.

"Where's your dad?" Isa asked this time.

Isa had been curious about this for some time now. Neither Lea nor his mother ever mentioned Lea's father before. This had caused Isa to wonder all sorts of things.

"Don't have one." Lea said without regret. He didn't say it with pride either, he said it for what it was. A fact.

"You have to have one. Don't you?"

"I don't think so." Lea answered. "Well, mom's never talked about it before." His voice trailed off a little as he began to consider this.

"Maybe I do have one somewhere." He finally said after a while.

"Would you ever want to meet him?"

"I don't know." Lea answered eventually. He'd spent the previous moments in silence, turning the question over in his mind.

"I've done fine without one so far. I don't think I really need one now."

Neither boy had anything else to add to the subject. Instead they turned back to the weekend homework and began working on that. Well Isa did. Lea sat back in his seat, just staring at the open book in front of him.

"I'm bored." Lea announced.

Isa rolled his eyes at the other boy. A little frustrated that he was unable to get any work.

"Wanna go mess around at the castle?"

"My dad said if I ever did that again, I'd be grounded for life." Isa had now given up any hope of getting this work done.

"He wont know." Isa gave him a disbelieving look. "Whose gonna tell him?"

"What did you have in mind?" Isa asked, buckling under.

"Let's just get out of here before your dad notices we've gone."

They both abandoned their seats and trundled out of the house. Isa's dad being far too busy observing some paperwork to notice.

...

"This is the last of it." Dilan, another guard at the castle said as he sighed with relief.

He leant against his rake as he surveyed his and Aeleus' work. It was the time of year where leaves had started changing colour and falling from trees. There was a cold nip to the air as well. Not cold enough to signal snow, but enough so you knew it wouldn't be long before it finally did snow.

Aeleus and Dilan had been released from their post by Captain Wallace, with orders to rake all the leaves which littered the floor surrounding the castle. It had rained that morning. The soggy leaves had been rather heavy to scrape across the entire castle yard, but they'd managed it. It had taken them nearly all afternoon.

The sky had started to turn a pretty pink colour, signalling the end of the school day. Workers and people visiting the castle started to pile out into the courtyard. The previously empty area, turned into a bustling expanse. There was barely any room to move without walking into someone.

"Good thing we finished before they got a chance to get in our way." Dilan remarked.

Aeleus just grunted as he hefted the enormous pile of leaves to rest against the wall which surrounded parts of the castle.

"Let's just clear this away and get back to our post." Aeleus said after he finished adding to the pile.

He looked toward the gates of the castle and saw Braig. Braig had been instructed to this post whilst the two larger guards raked the yard. He didn't seem to be that invested in his position either. All afternoon it seemed that he was just leaning on the door frame.

Aeleus was desperate to get back to his post.

The two guards retreated to fetch a couple of wheelbarrows. This left the yard unguarded. Apart from Braig of course, but he was still just leaning in the door way. Blind to the world around him.

If he was doing his job properly, he might have noticed a certain red head and a blue haired boy poking their heads over the top of the wall. The wall which was currently supporting the massive mound of leaves. The leaves that Aeleus and Dilan had spent hours raking.

It was unfortunate for his to hard working co-workers that he didn't notice.

If he was actually paying attention he would have then seen the seven year old's, climbing to the top of the wall. He would have seen the slight pause as the boys sat at the top, turning their heads briefly towards each other and smiled deviously.

Indeed he didn't even turn his head. That was until it was too late. He heard a sudden bout of joyous laughter. This caused him to look towards the sound. He still didn't do anything though. Other than find himself laughing at the boy's actions.

While he was looking away, the boy's had leapt off the wall and into the small mountain of leaves. The leaves flew everywhere. All that hard work undone. People passing by at the time got covered with the no longer raked leaves.

The two who made the mess didn't care though. They were having too much fun, rolling and kicking and throwing the contents of the pile everywhere. Laughing the whole time.

Braig found himself laughing. Not so much at the two trouble maker's antics, but more at how ticked off Dilan and Aeleus would be when they got back.

The guards returned not long after. Each pushing a large wheelbarrow. When they saw the state of their entire afternoon of work, their faces dropped. The look on their faces caused Braig to laugh even harder.

The boys joy was cut short however. Dilan dropped his wheelbarrow and marched towards them. Their laughter abruptly dyeing as he grabbed the back of their shirts and hauled them up to look him in the face.

"What. Do. You. Think. You're. Doing?" The dangerous tone caused the boys to glance at each other, in hopes of finding a solution to the predicament they had found themselves in.

"Umm..." The red head mumbled.

"You do realise that you're going to have to clean all this up don't you?" Dilan would have gestured to the leaves, but his hands were occupied with holding their shirts.

A look of panic crossed the boys faces. The blue haired boy started to squirm. Eventually he managed to detach himself from the scary guard's hand, dropping to the floor. The surprise of him doing this caused his grip to loosen on the red head. Me made to grab for them again, but they danced out of the way.

"Run Lea!" The blue haired boy shouted to his friend. They sprang from the scene with cat like feet.

The red head stopped at the other end of the yard and gave them a sloppy salute.

"See ya' bozos." He grinned smugly.

Dilan and Aeleus started after them. The other boy quickly grabbed his red headed friend's sleeve and dragged him off. As they went, the guards could hear them laughing.

The guards would have chased them off, but it was against regulations for them to leave the grounds unless absolutely necessary. This incident probably didn't fall into the category.

Aeleus grunted as he surveyed their destroyed work. Those were the boys he'd caught trespassing in the castle a couple of years a go. They were really starting to make him dislike children.

"Outsmarted by a coupla' brats." Braig mocked from his post. He'd seen the whole thing.

Aeleus stalked over to him.

"Maybe if you'd done something, this wouldn't have happened." His voice barley rose from a monotone, but it was by no means less dangerous.

"Couldn't leave my post now, could I?" He went back to his relaxed stance as he said this.

"You can now!" The pair looked over towards Dilan, who had just shouted. He was walking towards them, wielding a rake.

He approached the both of them and thrust the rake into Braig's hand.

"If you start now, you might be finished before sunset." Dilan crossed his arms at Braig.

"I don't think so." Braig snorted as he tried to hand the rake back to Dilan.

Dilan's crossed armed stance didn't change. Nor did Aeleus'.

"We'll take over your post for you." There was the barest hint of joy in Aeleus' words.

Dilan then put one of his hand's behind Braig's back and pushed him out of the way. He and Aeleus then took up Braig's old post.

"Get started." Dilan ordered.

Braig released a sigh of disbelief. He didn't move for a few silent moments, until it became obvious that the two larger men wouldn't budge.

He begrudgingly set to work.

Maybe he'd laughed too soon.

...

Lea and Isa were gleefully giggling as they ran. They were desperate to get away from the guards, unwilling to help clean up the mess they had made. Lea hadn't expected to get caught, he thought they'd get a chance to escape before the guards noticed what they'd done. But he was wrong.

He was glad Isa decided to take charge of the situation, by opting to run away. If Lea was honest with himself, he'd admit he froze up with the dark haired man caught them out. It wasn't until Isa had told him to run that he even thought that was an option.

That was usually how their excursions went. Lea would get some crazy idea. He and Isa would do it, they'd get caught and then Isa would find a way to get them out of it. It had happened countless times now. But Lea found himself enjoying each one.

"Do you think we lost 'em?" Isa asked breathlessly.

They had just come to a stop by the school gates. Neither were really sure as to how they ended up here. It just seemed to be where their feet carried them. Now they both leant of the gate in an attempt to get their breath back.

"I think so." Lea answered once his heartbeat had stopped racing. "I don't even know how far they followed us."

Both had been too busy sprinting away to realise the guards had only chased them out the castle grounds and no further.

"You do realise your mom's gonna kill you right?" Isa asked with a slight smile on his face.

"And your dad wont kill _you_?"

"My dad thinks _you're _the bad influence." Isa shrugged.

"That's cause your dad thinks It's always me who talks you into doing things." Lea shot back as he playfully shoved Isa in the shoulder.

"He's not completely wrong." Isa mumbled after trying to steady his feet.

"Yes he is."

"You're the one who decided to ruin all the guards work."

"I didn't force you to come along." Their voices started to raise a little. To anyone passing by, they would have assumed they were arguing. But the boy's were smiling as they carried on. "You could have said no."

Isa snickered at this.

"If I didn't come along you'd have only gotten in trouble."

"You make it sound like that's the only reason you came as well." Lea sat on the nearby fence as he said this. "You gotta' admit it was fun."

Isa who was still smiling, rolled his eyes.

"Sure." He tried to sound nonchalant as he said this. But Lea was right, it had been fun and he was still buzzing from it.

"How did we end up at school by the way?" Lea asked as he eyed their surroundings.

School had been dismissed a couple of hours a go by now. It was completely empty. Neither of them had ever been here so late before. To see a place usually so full of life and noise, so empty and silent was kind of eerie.

It didn't help that the sun was starting to set now. A result of the coming winter, causing the day to end rather early. By this time they would usually be home.

"I don't know." Isa answered as he to took in their location. "We should probably go though. Our parents will probably start to worry."

"I guess." Lea jumped from the fence to join his friend on the ground. "Wanna come over for dinner?"

Isa nodded. It was fairly common for him to just turn up at Lea's home now. It had gotten to the point, where Lea's mother had started making extra food for him as well. Also he often didn't tell his father where he'd be. By now he just knew.

They were about to start wondering home; when something caught Isa's attention.

"Did you hear that?" Isa asked a little frantically.

"Hear what?"

"I heard a voice."

Lea listened, he hadn't heard anything. He still couldn't hear anything.

"You can't have." Lea craned his neck to look around. He couldn't see anyone either. "There's nobody here." Why anyone would want to be at school when they didn't have to be was beyond him.

"I'm sure I heard something." Isa drifted back to the school gates. He desperately looked around, trying to prove there was a voice.

"You're imagining stuff." Lea dismissed as he tried to usher Isa away. "Hey. What are you doing?"

Isa had started to climb the gate.

"I'm going to take a look." He grunted as he hefted his body over the top. He stopped when he reached the top and looked at Lea. "You coming?"

This was different. Isa initiating the trouble. Not that anything had actually happened yet, but you could never be too sure with these two around.

"I suppose I should come, keep you out of trouble." Lea started to climb the gate.

"Yeah right." He heard Isa mumble.

Isa was on the other side of the gate when they heard a yell.

"What are you doing?"

Lea stopped climbing to look out at the owner of the voice.

He breathed out in relief when he saw Hope approaching them. He was being accompanied by Vanille. At first Lea thought they'd been caught by a teacher or something.

"Hiya Hope." Isa waved from the other side of the fence.

"What are you doing?" Hope repeated, looking from Isa to Lea. Lea who was still hanging over the top of the gate.

"What are _you_ doing?" Lea ignored Hope's question.

Instead of climbing down the other side of the gate, he jumped and landed next to Isa. It wasn't a graceful landing however as he missed his footing, causing him to sprawl on the floor. Isa rolled his eyes at his friends. Lea just rubbed the back of his neck in slight pain.

"I lost one of my books." It was Vanille who answered. "We've been looking for it for ages."

"And we saw what you did at the castle." Hope stepped closer to the gate to get a good look at them.

"I thought it was funny." Vanille giggled a little at the memory.

"So you decided to follow us?" Lea asked getting to his feet. He stretched his arms out trying to work out the kinks in his shoulders.

"No. This was just where we thought to look next." Hope responded in defense.

"Yeah. We just happened to run into you." Vanille approached them.

"You still haven't told us what you're doing." Hope eyed them both suspiciously.

Before Lea or Isa got a chance to answer, they were interrupted by a different voice. The voice Isa had sworn he originally heard.

"You heard it that time right?" Isa looked hopefully toward Lea.

"Yeah." Lea looked in the direction of the strange voice.

The voice came from the back of the school grounds. It was to dark to really see anything, but they'd definitely heard something. It wasn't a anguished yell or a frantic whisper. It was just a voice, in a seemingly empty place. If they'd heard it when the school was bustling with students and teachers they wouldn't have batted an eyelid. The fact they could hear anyone else there at all had them all slightly on edge.

Who was hanging around an empty school? And why?

"We're investigating the voice." Isa eventually informed Hope.

Judging by the look on Hope and Vanille's faces, they'd heard it too.

"Hey wait up!" Vanille called out to the two retreating figures. "I'm coming too." She began to climb the fence. Not hindered by the fact she was wearing a skirt. Isa and Lea stopped to wait. Both were clearly eager to see what was going on.

"Wait!" Hope yelled up to Vanille. "Whoever the voice belong's to could be dangerous. Shouldn't we get an adult?"

"It might also be nothing." Lea fired back.

Vanille copied Lea in jumping from the fence. However she managed to land on her feet. Lea looked at her with slight envy and crossed his arms.

"If you're so worried go and find one." She smiled at Hope.

"Can we get going already?" Lea asked impatiently. He was tired of all the chatter.

"See ya' Hope." Isa waved as he, Lea and Vanille started in the direction of the voice.

"I'm coming too!" They'd heard Hope yell from the gate.

Lea groaned with impatient rage. Annoyed to be held up again.

"Just hurry up!" Lea yelled as he hopped from foot to foot.

"Hold your horses." Hope yelled as he clamboured up the gate. It was taking him longer than it had for any of the other's. But then he was the shortest of the bunch.

Hope also attempted the jump he'd witnessed from Vanille and Lea. Unfortunately for him he landed in a heap the floor. Lea snorted with laughter.

"Don't laugh!" Vanille scolded as she went forward to help Hope. "The same thing happened to you!"

"Mine wasn't that bad though." Lea was still snorting.

"Yes it was." Isa informed him, causing his face to in turn caused Isa to light up. "We all saw it."

"Whatever." Lea grumbled in defiance.

Vanille helped Hope to his feet, and assisted in dusting off his clothes. After wasting so much time Vanille and Hope finally joined Isa and Lea.

"Let's do this."

The four children strode forward, in the direction of the mysterious sound. All unaware of what they might find, but all to eager to care. None of them really considering they could be willing strolling into immediate danger.

...

A/N: The leaf jumping scene was partially inspire by a really cute piece of fan art I recently came across. Unfortunately I can't find a link to give credit to the original artist.

Let me know what you think.


	4. Chapter Four

A/N: Finally got it finished. Hopefully the next part wont take as long. I was initially going to have this chapter be one long one, but decided to split it in two. Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I own no Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy characters.

...

The sky was darkening quickly. None of the children could really make out what was in front of them. All they could really see where shadows covering the already, dark path. Vanille grasped Hope's hand as they felt their way across the school grounds. The feel of Vanille grabbing his hand, surprised Hope and caused him to stumble over his own feet. He accidentally knocked into Lea in the process.

"Watch it!" Lea hiss whispered and turned his head in Hope's direction. He would have fixed him with a glare, but there wouldn't have been any point seeing as they couldn't really see each others facial features.

"Sorry." Hope apologised. Once he realised it was only Vanille grabbing his hand and not someone else sneaking up on them, he relaxed a little. Embarrassment did flush through him though, at the thought of Vanille holding his hand. She didn't do it out of fear, but more so she didn't get separated from the group and end up lost in the dark.

"So you should be." Lea turned back to where he was originally facing.

He noticed that Isa had carried on ahead and jogged to catch up with him.

"What do you think we'll find?" Isa wondered aloud once Lea caught up to him. He'd been raking his brain as to what the mysterious voice could be.

"A ghost?" Lea answered after few moments of processing the question.

"I think it'll be a monster." Vanille called as she waded up to them, dragging Hope along.

"Monsters can't talk." The group stopped to look at each other. Suddenly nervous of what could be a head of them.

"How do you know?" Vanille raised an eyebrow at Isa response to her idea.

"Maybe it'll be a phantom." Hope put in as the reached the edge of the school building.

"A phantom _is_ a ghost." Lea looked down at Hope as he said this.

"Well whatever it is, I think it's right around this corner." Isa lowered his voice in an attempt to get everyone else to talk quietly as well.

If it was a ghost or a monster, then it was probably a good idea not to alert it to their presence.

The little group drew closer to each other and the side of the building, in an attempt to hide from whatever was ahead of them.

"Are we just gonna stand here?" Lea asked after the rest of them became hushed.

"No. Let's go." Isa responded.

Together they each let out an unintentional but collective breath.

Steadily the rounded the corner. Vanille gripped Hope's hand a little tighter in anticipation. All their hearts were beating fast. A mixture of fear and excitement. Even Lea, who up to this point had put on a brave face, even his heart pounded heavily inside his chest. A small drop of cold sweat, trickled down the side of Isa's face.

They were walking at a slow pace. Concerned that if they were about to face any danger, they could get away before it saw them.

They rounded the corner and walked forward a little. It was still difficult to see among the shadows, which were still blackening. But they could see a sort of lump just a few feet in front of them.

"Who's there?" A panicked voice asked.

The voice had obviously sensed another presence closing in on it. It was too dark for him as well. In the dark, the children could see the person they'd been approaching spring to it's feet. However there was still a lump of a person on the floor, where the other person had clearly just been crouching. The one of the floor did raise itself slightly, but didn't stand.

As soon as the little group heard the voice, they knew it was nothing to be scared of. It sounded too young and too familiar to fear.

"Reno?" Lea asked as he stepped forward to get a closer look.

As he came toward him, the other person on the floor stood up. He was brandishing a lit lantern. He held it out as he moved to stand next to Reno.

"Not you two." Vanille groaned. Due to the welcome addition of the lantern, she released Hope's hand.

"Do we know you?" Rude asked as he looked at Vanille in confusion.

"What are you doing here?" Isa demanded before Vanille could respond.

"Looking for something." Reno answered as he tilted his head a little. The light from the lantern caused shadows to form across his face, making him look oddly intimidating.

"What are _you _doing here?" Rude looked at the collective group that had found them.

"We're looking for something to." Lea answered for everyone else. "What is it you're looking for?"

His question caused Reno look towards his bald friend, who was still holding the lantern. Rude looked towards him as well and nodded. Signalling it was okay to tell them.

"We saw something." He began. The four younger children looked on in anticipation for him to continue.

"What?" Hope asked a little timidly. He was still uncomfortable with the situation, he felt even more so now Reno and Rude were here.

"It looked like a monster made of shadows or something." Rude informed the younger children. "We saw it hanging around the castle and followed it here. Now we can't find it."

Isa couldn't tell if he was just making things up to scare them. It occurred to him that maybe they were up to some kind of prank. You could never tell with those two.

"Told you it was a monster." Vanille gloated.

"But monsters can't talk." Isa replied firmly. "Did it talk?" He asked after considering this.

Rude shook his head.

"Then what was that voice we heard?" Hope asked looking toward his companions.

"Voice?" Reno asked incredulously.

"We were following a voice we heard."

"Is there anyone else here?" Lea asked Reno.

"Just us."

Rude saw the confusion on the other groups faces.

"But we definitely heard something." He heard Vanille whisper.

"Did ya ever think that could have just been us?" He gestured to himself and Reno.

The other four looked embarrassed as realisation dawned. Maybe they had overreacted.

"Where's this monster then?" Lea asked as he was the first to recover.

"Over there we think."

In the dim light, provided by the lantern, Lea saw Reno pointing out towards the end of the school sports field. It was mostly used for racing and large sports related games, which required a vast amount of team work. The school had forbidden children from playing on it at any other times. Much to their dismay. The playground provided wasn't nearly as fun as the field.

The sports field was located at the back of the school. On the edges, a rattled old wired fence had been erected. The fence separated the school and the field from a heavily forested area. This was one of the reasons the children were not allowed there unsupervised. The teachers feared one of the children would scale the fence into the forest while they weren't looking.

Nearly every child in school had heard rumours about the forest. Rumours such as the forest being haunted, or large groups of monsters living in the forest, hungry only for children, or the really obscure one about the family of murderous thugs who had found a home there. Most of them had been made up of course. But to bored school children with overactive imaginations, the rumours may as well have been true.

Isa reflected on the place. He'd always been skeptical of the stories which circulated from there. But if there really was a monster wondering around, the forest is where it would most likely go.

"Where are you going?" Isa asked. Lea had started to wonder off in the direction Reno had just pointed to.

"I'm gonna go look for it. You coming?"

Lea was looking at Isa as he said this, but the question was directed at everyone. It was almost as if he was daring them into the forest. At once, Isa, Reno and Rude went forwards to join Lea, who was still waiting for them. Vanille took a step forward but was stopped when Hope grabbed her hand and pulled her back.

"This is a bad idea. We shouldn't do this."

"No one's makin' ya." Reno fired at Hope, putting his hands on his hips.

"Stay here if you really want, Hope. But I wanna go check it out." Vanille shook Hope's hand free and skipped over to join the others.

The group started off in the direction of the fence and the forest. They all whispered nervously to each other as they went.

Hope stood his ground. As far as he was concerned he was doing the right thing in not going. He knew he would have to go back and tell an adult what the others were up to though. He was willing to do so even if they did call him a snitch for it. Anxiously he shuffled his feet away from the retreating group. Feeling very restless now that they had taken the lantern. There wasn't even any moonlight to guide him.

He couldn't see anything. In an effort to try and guide him out of the school, he started to feel his way along the building. Unwilling to lift his feet to high in case he tripped on an unseen object, he scuffed his already messy black shoes on the gravel beneath his feet.

The feeling on rough old bricks, scraped along his hands as he guided them over the exterior of the building.

This was taking ages. But he was unwilling to move to fast or suddenly. By the time he reached the corner of the wall, his eyes had adjusted a little to the dark. Not so much that he could make out a clear image, but enough for his eyes to be able to discern certain shapes. He could also roughly tell how close the his shadowy surroundings were to him.

Craning his neck sightly, to work a kink out of his stiffened joints, something caught his eye. Originally he'd assumed it was just one of the decorative bushes which were dotted around the school grounds. But decorative bushes don't wobble the way this object did. Not even on a particularly blustery day.

At the sudden shocking moment he jumped and pressed his back to the wall. He brought his arms up to his chest in a sort of shield of whatever he could be about to face .

He was now facing the object straight on, waiting for it to move again. It didn't, it just sat stock still. If it had eyes it would have glared at him. Hope was beginning to think his eyes were playing tricks on him. He strained his eyes as much as he could, in an effort to bring some detail to the object opposite him.

Still nothing.

Maybe he had imagined it? Maybe the overwhelming feeling of terror and loneliness was making him picture things that weren't actually there.

He would have laughed to himself. However the mysterious object then confirmed his worst fear.

Suddenly the seemingly solid object fell to the floor. It didn't fall as in fall over. It looked more like it melted. It was almost like liquid shadows, dribbling to the floor and constructing a black puddle. Hope had never seen anything like it. He couldn't think of what it could be. He didn't really get much time of consider it either. The puddle then started moving toward didn't move slowly either. It still moved like running water.

All he could do before the dark puddle reached his feet, was jump out the way. He threw himself to the floor. Regrettably for him, he hadn't managed to throw himself very far and ended up in a heap.

After gathering his wits, he manged to re position himself so that he was shuffling along on his behind. The puddle slithered in pursuit of him.

"No!" The puddle had gotten a little to close for comfort. He cried out and kicked out a foot, trying to keep it away from him. He screamed when the puddle then raised itself out of the concrete floor and made to grab his foot. "Help!"

...

"Did you hear that?" The group paused in their pursuit of the forest. They had been talking excitedly about what awaited them. But the sudden yell from where they had just been made them come to a stop.

"It sounded like Hope." Vanille stepped forward slightly, in the direction of the anguished yell.

"I wonder what's wrong?" Isa wondered as he came to stand next to Vanille.

"Probably just scared of his own shadow." Reno sneered.

Reno had only been around Hope a handful of times. Lea had also divulged a lot of information about him, back when he used to pick on him. So far his general impression of the light haired boy was that of a wuss.

Vanille turned and fixed Reno with a stern glare. He reared back a little, suddenly afraid of what she might be capable of. The light from the lantern made the shadows which fell across her face look extremely sinister. His reaction cause Rude to snicker.

"Scared of a girl." He heard Rude whisper to himself.

"Shut up." He shoved the taller boy as he said this.

"I'm going to see what's wrong." Vanille stated as she grabbed the lantern from Rude.

"Hey!" He protested.

She didn't listen. Instead she began bounding toward to direction she'd heard her friend screaming.

"Where are you going?" Lea called to Isa. Isa had started to follow Vanille. He turned at Lea's shout.

"I'm going with her."

"Why?" Lea called back.

"He's my friend, he could be hurt." He said, as if were obvious.

Isa and Hope still considered themselves friends. Even though they hadn't spent much time together in a while. These days Hope spent all his time with Vanille and Isa spent all his time with Lea. But as far as they were concerned, that didn't mean they weren't friends.

"Come on!" Isa waved to Lea, signalling he expected him to follow.

Lea did follow. Isa waited for him to catch up and then they ran off in the direction Vanille had fled to. Now it was just Reno and Rude, left alone in the dark.

"Should we go to?" Rude asked his red headed friend.

Now they were left with no light to guide them, he could see no other option. They had only made it this face, due to the lantern Rude had stolen from his father. Now they were standing there, clueless about what their next move should be.

"Sure." Reno sighed.

Reno, wasn't really convinced anything was wrong. It seemed that Hope made a big deal out of most situations, so as far as Reno was concerned, Hope was probably just freaking out over nothing. His main reason for following was to get the lantern back so they could continue with their little quest themselves. Rude wanted to get the lantern back so his father wouldn't ground him for life for stealing from him.

...

"Hope! Where are you?" Vanille held the lantern out in front of her as she ran. It helped her see a little more, but not much. It also made all the surroundings look as if they were moving with she ran,she noticed the light she was carrying dimming slightly. Each time she took a step the torch would flicker as if it were about to go out. Soon she found herself at a stand still. The lantern was clearly on it's last legs. How it had lasted this far she had no idea. The lantern finally gave a small shudder of bright light. This only last for a moment though, before it flickered out completely. Letting out a frustrated grunt, she came to a stop. In an attempt to bring some life into the significantly old lantern, she began jolting it. She was reward with her efforts when the light faint gleam of light shone from it.

"Hope!"

She stayed in the place she first stopped. To nervous that any further movement would cause the pathetic light to go out completely. Lea and Isa appear behind her. Each struggling to catch their breath from following her. After witnessing the light failing her they were worried that they would loose sight of her all together. Meaning they might loose track of Hope as well. When they saw the dim light flickering from a short distance a head of them, they quickly approached, so as not to loose it again.

"Hope!" Isa yelled as he surveyed the area.

The air was starting to grow colder as well. Every time one of them spoke or took a breath, a small white mist would linger in the air. The chill caused Lea to start rubbing his arms, An attempt to get some warmth and feeling back into them.

"Maybe he didn't come this way." Lea stammered as the cold made his teeth chatter.

Reno and Rude joined the three of them, just as the lantern light started to flicker again. Vanille started shaking it in frustration; hoping it would make the light stay on. But no such luck. By now she was entirely to fed up with the device. She was seriously contemplating just throwing the thing on the floor and carrying on without it. It would cause much less hassle. At the moment it wasn't really aiding them in their search for Hope. The light dimmed and flickered a couple more times before going out all together. Now they were all standing hopelessly in the pitch black.

"Stupid thing." Vanille gritted.

She carried of shaking it vigorously, desperate to jolt some life into it.

"Oh fantastic." Reno's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Great lantern you got there Rude."

"It was working fine when I took it from home..."

"Vanille! Isa!" The argument surrounding Rude's lantern was cut short by a distant yell.

"Hope?" Isa called in the direction of the voice.

"Where are you?" Vanille shouted. Now her focus was split between trying to locate Hope, and shaking the lantern in an attempt to get it working again.

"Run!" Hope's yell sounded louder this time.

His command caused them all to tense up a little. Vanille's head snapped up from her primary focus, curious as to what he was getting to. Now they were all much more apprehensive then they had been a moment a go.

"Run?" Lea called absently. He had no idea where Hope was or how close, so he just called out in hopes he would hear.

"What do you mean?" Rude did the same.

"Run away!" This time his voice sounded as if it were coming right towards them.

Vanille gave the lantern one last, firm shake. Finally it flickered alive again. She would have felt triumphant to finally get the better of the stupid thing, had it no been for what the light revealed. Her mouth dropped open slightly. Then she began shaking the lantern again, but this time as an involuntary reflex, not from frustration. The first thing she saw was Hope sprinting towards them. Relief sparked in her chest, but then died abruptly.

"What the..?" Lea stammered, but this time not from the cold.

Hope wasn't the only thing they saw.

A shadow of some kind, was rapidly pursuing him. It followed him with the hunger of a wolf chasing a petrified rabbit. Except this creature didn't run. It looked almost as if it were floating. Which was impossible because it had an obvious pair of feet attached to it spindly legs. Maybe it wasn't _actually _floating, but just appeared to be. The way it moved was so inhuman and natural. It's movement wasn't graceful or elegant. It bumbled and seemed to trip over it's own feet. It looked awkward and ungainly. Clearly it wasn't an intelligent creature. The way it stalked Hope, without allowing anything to came between it and it's prey, showed it was probably a creature of instinct.

The shock of the strange creature caused Vanille to loose her grip on the lantern. It fell to the floor with a smash.

Now they could see nothing, but were very much aware that Hope was being chased by some kind of monster, and now it may be aware of them as well.

The smash, caused the creature to grind to a halt. Seemingly, unaware that Hope was still desperately trying to escape it's clawed grasp. Or maybe it was more intrigued by the appearance of this new group of potential prey.

It's yellow, bug like eyes, glowed through the murky gloom. This was the only way the children were even aware that they had gain the creature's interest. The way the to yellow orbs, seemed to come towards them only confirmed it.

"I told you to run!" They couldn't really see it but the volume of Hope's voice told them he had finally caught up with them.

Hope grabbed Vanille's hand and yanked it, making Vanille follow.

The other boys, hadn't seen this so they just stood there, at a loss of what to do.

"Come on!" Hope and Vanille called in unison.

...

Hana, Lea's mother stood in the open doorway of her home. Her arms were crossed over her chest, in hopes of keeping warm. The night was bitterly cold, causing her to wrap up even though she hadn't left the house since she got home from work.

She returned early in the afternoon, just in time for her to run into Lea and Isa. They had informed they were going to Isa's house, but would be back in time for dinner. She'd prepared dinner in time for the sun to start setting. But Lea never came home. It wasn't always unusual for him to be a little late, so she didn't think much of it and kept his and Isa's food on the table, whilst she started cleaning up the cooking utensils.

Then the food started going cold. An hour later and there was still no sign of either of them. Then the sun completely set and they still hadn't walked through the door like she expected. By this point she was extremely worried.

She was reluctant to leave the house to search however, in case Lea came home while she was gone. She'd convinced herself she was over reacting and that any moment Lea would waltz down the street and into the house. Every time she saw someone approach, she perked up and made for the door. That was until she realised it was never him.

Isa's father, Ren, eventually confirmed he fears when he came knocking on the door in search of the boys. Apparently he hadn't seen them for a couple of hours. At first he jut assumed they had made their way over to Lea's house without telling him. It wouldn't be the first time it had happened so he hadn't been too worried at first. That was until he noticed the homework the boys had been working on, unfinished on the kitchen table, along with all their stuff. He wasn't really sure what he suspected had happened to the boys, but he was feeling very unsettled by the whole thing.

After a while he decided to head over to Lea's house, to see if they were there. He was extremely concerned to find Lea's mother in such a frantic state at the absence of her son. Thus making him feel even more unsettled and worried about his own son. Instead of wasting time worrying, he decided to go find the boys himself, or see if someone knew where they were. Lea's mother had decided to stay at the house in case they came back. She hadn't moved from the doorway since Isa's father left.

That was a couple of hours a go by now. As time dragged on, she only grew more anxious. Her heart lifted however when she noticed Isa's father rounding the corner of the street toward the house. She was half expecting to see Lea and Isa trailing along behind him. That wasn't the case unfortunately. Isa's father had returned on his own.

"No sign of them?" She asked as he came to stand next to her.

"I looked all over town." He said regretfully. "I had to report them missing."

"To who?" She had never found herself in this situation before, so she was unaware of the correct protocol.

"The head guard at the castle. Captain Wallace, I think that was his name. He said he'd get together a search party, but it may take a while. Apparently there's another couple of kids missing." He relayed the message as quickly as possible. A mixture his anxiety and not wanting to miss out any important information. While he was telling her this he didn't look her in the eye once. Instead he was entirely too focused on his shoes. It was a nervous habit. One Isa had adopted from him.

"There are more children missing?" She asked, trying to process everything he had just told her.

He nodded in response. Still staring at the floor intently.

"Captain Wallace, said we should go to the castle. That way we can help provide the search team with any information."

She didn't need to hear another word. If this was the only chance she had of finding her son, then she didn't want to waste another second. So at lightning speed, she slammed the front door shut and locked, before finally bolting down the street towards the castle.

...

Originally, Lea had thought the prospect of facing a monster, very exciting. His mother had always told him they weren't real. Her denial of such creatures just made him more determined to prove her wrong. As far as he was concerned, there had to be more to life than just the regular, everyday occurrences.

Now, however as he found himself and his friends being pursued by some type of monstrous creature, he wished his mother was right. Right now the _idea_ of finding a monster, that may not even be there, was much more appealing than being chased by one.

The terrified group still hadn't left the school grounds. It was far to dark to be able to see where they were going, it was a very real danger that if one tried to leave the school they would get lost or hurt themselves, whilst lost in the darkness.

The children had all stuck together. Each to afraid to wonder off. They were under the impression that there was safety in numbers.

At this moment in time, they were all crouched as close to the ground as possible. Their backs, flat against the wall and their knees pressed to ther chests. They were trying to make themselves less visible to the creature. They were all huddled together in fear.

"I'm telling you, we should go inside." Reno whispered and gestured to the school building.

They hadn't seen the monster in a while. But that didn't mean it wasn't lingering around, waiting for them to reveal themselves.

"I already told you." Hope sighed in exasperation. "Going inside wont do anything. The monster moved _through _the ground. Walls wont stop it."

"We need to do something." Isa whispered as he tried to look around.

"Going inside wont do anything to help us." Hope was getting impatient.

"Neither will just sitting here." Rude informed them.

"The doors are all locked though. How will we get inside?" Vanille wondered.

"We could break a window and climb in?" Lea suggested, after a few moments of thoughtful silence.

"The noise might make the monster come back." Hope whispered urgently.

"Maybe it went away on it's own." Rude said hopefully.

"I think I can see it!" Isa whispered, the equivalent of a terrified yelp.

During the whole time they had been sat there, pondering their next move, Isa had taken it upon himself to be the lookout. He'd been straining his eyes through the lightless gloom, in hopes of seeing the creature. This way if they needed to make a quick escape, they could without the creature surprising them.

"There!" He pointed to the other side of the courtyard.

They all turned to see where he was pointing. It was made rather difficult by the fact they were all trying not to move from their spot on the floor. They were relieved to see, the creature wasn't looking at them. In fact it was just drifting lazily from one end of the playground to the other. It was almost as if it had forgotten about them and was just wasting time until something else caught it's attention.

"I bet we could get past it." Lea informed the group. "All we have to do is go round the other side of the school. I bet it wouldn't even see us."

"Let's try it." Rude slowly got to his feet. The entire time, he refused to take his eyes off the creature, just in case it decided to charge again.

The other five followed his example and rose, sluggishly from the ground. They dare not go any faster.

"Let's go." Rude whispered as he crept away.

Again, the other's started following him. Each of their bodies were practically scraping against the wall as they went. All were too afraid to be the one to separate from the wall. The very real threat that it would catch the monster's attention and bring it over to them. They moved no faster then a snail pace. Rude was at the front of the group, so he took it upon himself to lead them all away. Reno took his place at the rear of the group, taking over from Isa as a lookout. He was far to taken up with watching the creature, that he wasn't focusing on where he put his feet. They may have had a chance to escape if he hadn't put his foot on a rather large twig. The twig snapped. Usually the sound wouldn't have caught anyone's attention. But in this situation, the snap almost echoed like a scream down a tunnel. The rest of the group all turned their head's at Reno, a look of fury covering each of their faces.

"Oops." Reno barely got a chance to say.

The sound of the snap, caused the monster to twist it's head in the direction of the sound. The echo was almost like a reminder that it had been chasing something. It's glowing eyes fell upon the children. It barely seemed to process the sight, before it began flying at the terrified children.

"Run!" Vanille cried. The stealthy mode they had been trying to maintain was now forgotten. They all sprang away from their pursuer.

"Let's get inside!" Reno shouted.

By now he'd moved from the rear of the group and was closer to the front. Leaving Lea at the back.

The monstrous being, drifted just a couple of steps behind him. He could almost swear he felt it grab for his scruffy hair. The shock of actually being touched by the monster made him freeze. He could barley move, it was almost as if fear had bolted his feet to the ground.

Now, he was at the creature's mercy. The being itself wasn't much taller than him, so when it's shadowy hands reached into his chest, it did it with almost no effort. It's arms passed through him as if it were made of thin air. A frozen sensation, rippled through his chest as the creature searched around Lea's body for something.

"Lea!" Isa screamed.

He'd turned back to make sure everyone was still behind him, when he saw Lea standing a still as a statue. The look on his face was a mixture of confusion and terror. His already pale skin, had whitened more and was visibly dripping with sweat.

"Keep going!" He yelled to the other's.

They had paused in their get away when they noticed Isa was no longer running. Each of them became extremely mystified to see him head back the way they came. He ran towards the creature, it's hands still plunged into his best friend's chest, searching blindly for something.

Wasting no time at all, Isa got behind Lea and hooked his arms under his. He grunted at the weight, but managed to drag Lea out of the creature's grasp. The creature, seemed a little dazed at the sudden loss of it's prey. It retaliated by heading towards the now retreating Isa, who was hauling Lea away with a lot of difficulty.

The extra weight had slowed Isa, but there was no way he would leave Lea behind. He checked behind his shoulder to observe the creature's progress. His heart, leapt into his throat at the sight of it closing in on him.

"Yaah!" Reno yelled as he ran towards the shadowy pursuer.

He had found a small branch and was wielding it as if it were a sword. He didn't think it would do the creature much damage, but if it brought them some time, then he was more than happy. He dashed towards the creature, swinging his weapon. The creature backed up a little as the branch impacted with the side of it's head. Reno lurched forward with the branch again. This time the pointed end actually went through the body of the shadow. It convulsed, causing Reno to move away from it. Only a couple of seconds after, it exploded into a spray of dust. Reno, Lea, Isa and Rude got covered in it.

Isa was relieved to see Rude appear next to him and slide his arm around Lea's shoulders. Together they struggled with dragging him away.

"Is it dead?" Vanille perked up.

During the little episode, she and Hope had taken cover around the sharp corner of the building. They had witnessed Reno confronting the creature and apparently winning. The sight caused her spirits to lift tremendously.

"Now we can leave!" Hope cheered triumphantly.

He and Vanille ran from their cover, towards the rest of the group.

"Let's go, before anything else happens." Rude grunted as he assisted Isa in hefting Lea away.

They had begun to celebrate too soon.

Almost the moment they turned towards were they assumed the exit was, another creature burst from the ground in front of them and stared them down.

"No!" Hope cried.

"I'll take care of it!" Reno reached for the branch he used to defeat the first creature.

He was under the impression that just because he'd killed the first one, he was now the only one capable of killing this one. He didn't consider that maybe these things were just easy to take care of.

However he was stopped by the appearance of another. It, like the other two sprang from the ground and started to amble towards the children. Reno backed away and rejoined the others. He didn't even get the chance to retrieve his weapon. It just sat useless of the ground.

"Where are they coming from?" Isa wondered.

"What the hell are they?" Rude asked aloud, not really expecting an answer.

The boys attention on the creatures were broken by the sound of smashing glass. All except Lea, who was still frozen from shock. Their attention was now focused on Vanille. After the second creature had revealed itself, she had taken it upon herself to remove her shoe, and used it to smash the closest window she could reach.

"Hurry up!" She demanded as she climbed through the now exposed window.

She landed in a heap on the other side, cutting herself on the shards on the floor. She had already gained a few cuts on her arms and legs from the jagged edges still left on the window. Quickly she observed her new surroundings and found herself in the school cafeteria.

Rapidly, she leapt back to her feet to help the others get inside.

Reno jumped in first. He was a fair bit taller, so it wasn't as much of a struggle for him. He too gained a couple of cuts on his shoulders. He gestured to Isa and Rude to pass Lea to he and Vanille. With little to no grace the two of them practically shoved the shell shocked Lea towards the outstretched arms. Vanille and Reno grabbed an elbow each and dragged him inside. They quickly backed up to let the others in.

"Come on!" Isa called to Hope, who was hanging back.

Isa took the chance to look towards the creatures. Currently they were too busy examining each other to notice the children. There was no telling how long this would last though. These creatures seemed to have short attention spans.

"But..." Hope stammered a little.

Rude, not willing to listen to any protests grabbed him by the front of the shirt and pushed him in front of he and Isa. Hope was the shortest of all of them. By quite a lot in fact. It looked like it would be a chore for him to climb the short height himself. This caused Isa and Rude to grab an arm each and lift him to the window ledge.

"Careful of the glass." Vanille warned, as she helped him inside.

Isa jumped up next. It was no problem for him to reach. He did get a nasty gash on his hand from a piece of glass stick out of the window. He cried out as he hit the floor of the cafeteria and set about removing the glass embedded in his hand.

Rude was the last in. He looked behind him once more to see what the creatures were up to. It seemed that now they had finally noticed their prey was gone. They both search rapidly before their eyes fell upon Rude, who was clambouring through the window. It was then they started ambling towards them. They were literally falling over each other to reach them.

"We have to get upstairs." Rude ordered when he hit the ground.

He ran towards the others. They had all taken refuge under a table. Reno was now supporting Lea.

"Couldn't we just board up the window?" Isa asked.

"I told you, these things can move through the floor." Hope sighed.

"Let's just get to the top floor." Vanille said as she sprang to her feet.

Rude joined Reno in aiding Lea. They grabbed an arm and started dragging him away. Hope and Vanille were quick to follow. Isa was just about to follow, but he looked round at the wrong time. A dark portal appeared on the cafeteria walls. The creatures that had been outside then began stepping through the seemingly solid wall. Isa turned and hurried after the others.

To them, the idea of being inside and as high up as possible, was the best idea. None of them considered that they were giving the creatures the advantage by cornering themselves. If they were going to get caught, they'd have nowhere to run.


End file.
